SAN DIEGO, CA, Sept. 11, 2018 – Multimeric Biotherapeutics, Inc. (“Multimeric” or the “Company”), a biotechnology company developing immunotherapies and vaccines against infectious diseases and cancer, today announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued Patent No. 10,072,064, entitled “Composition Comprised of Antigen Linked to a TNF Superfamily Ligand.” Joint inventors are Geoffrey W. Stone and Richard S. Kornbluth.
The abstract contained in the Company’s patent application describes the invention as follows: “The invention provides fusion proteins comprising antigens of infectious disease agents and cancer cells linked to multiple-trimer forms of TNF SuperFamily (TNFSF) ligands. The TNFSFs serve as vaccine adjuvants for increasing the immune response to the antigens. In particular, a fusion polypeptide strand that self-assembles inside cells into a multiple-trimer form of CD40 ligand (CD40L) is provided. Other similar fusion proteins are also disclosed. The fusion proteins can be delivered to a host as isolated proteins, as nucleic acids used directly in DNA vaccination or carried and expressed by a viral vector such as adenovirus. In addition to use as a vaccine to prevent or ameliorate disease caused by an infectious agent, compositions of the invention may be used for the treatment of ongoing infection or for cancer immunotherapy.”
The experimental work supporting the patent application was performed in Dr. Stone’s lab at the University of Miami.
Richard S. Kornbluth, MD, PhD, Co-Inventor and Multimeric’s President & Chief Scientific Officer, commented: “CD8+ T cells are a special type of lymphocyte that are able to recognize and kill infected cells and cancer cells. This killing activity is specific for the antigen recognized by the T cell receptor (TCR) on their surfaces. However, it has been difficult to develop vaccines that elicit strong CD8+ T cell responses. This difficulty is an important reason why it has been so hard to develop a vaccine for HIV and vaccines against cancer. Consequently, there is an urgent need to develop a vaccine platform for CD8+ T cells. To meet this need, Multimeric is developing FortiVacTM which is based on a highly active, multi-trimer form of CD40 ligand (CD40L). CD40L has been called a “master switch” in the immune system and is known to be important for eliciting strong CD8+ T cells. This new composition-of-matter patent supports the development of FortiVacTM as a widely applicable vaccine platform technology.”